Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Destiny's Child.

Today is Tuesday.  That means that at 11:05 campus shuts down (for the most part) for the weekly Devotional/Forum.  Today it was a forum.  Can I just say that I really enjoy forums?  Today was really, really fascinating.  The speaker was Neil Howe.

Now, I'm with you.  I don't really understand why his hand is like that...I've been wondering that all week as I walk past posters with this exact picture on them.  I'm totally stumped....but some might say this is a tangent.

Anyway, he came and spoke to us about generations.  The G.I. generation, the Silent generation, the Baby Boomers, Gen X (the group of people, not to be confused with the really awesome (psych) clothing store by Macey's), and the Millennial generation.  It was extraordinarily fascinating.  I was seriously entranced for the entire 45 minutes (except for when the girl next to me got a phone call and she proceeded to answer it during the forum...really?  Really?  Really.)  Anyway, it was all about how different generations do things in certain ways and how our circumstances and environment can really have an effect on the types of people we can become.  Now, I'm not saying that everything he said is necessarily true, but I think he really brought up a ton of good points. 

For example (and this is what Dr. Howe said, though I agree with much of it), when compared the generation before us, the Millennial generation is much more optimistic, more focused on getting outside of ourselves, more confident in our abilities.  Gen X was somewhat depressing.  The Vietnam kids, children of the Silent generation (who lived through the great depression).  Drugs, divorce, crime, pessimism--don't kid yourself, it was all over the place.  It is interesting to see these generational shifts.  The Gen X-ers are fabulous people, but they don't trust the system, they want to do it on their own.  They don't particularly care for teamwork.  Things are changing, and hopefully for the better.  The Millennial Kids have a rough future coming, but we can handle it.  I like the greater focus on volunteerism and family.  While Gen X reached a low of having only 1.3 kids per couple, the Millennial Kids are surpassing 3 per couple.  Please don't quote me on any of this (because I know I am just so quotable), but I'm just fascinated to see where we go from here.  A new generation is about to come forth in the next decade or so, and I'm interested to see what they'll be like. 

Dr. Howe ended with a quote by FDR that was pretty neat-o torpedo.

"There is a mysterious cycle in human events.  To some generations much is given.  Of other generations much is expected.  This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny."

I have a rendezvous with destiny.

1 comment:

Stacy said...

I agree...I loved this forum. I think his hand was like that all through the forum too...haha. Funny guy too.